Data communication channels generally include encoding of data before it passes through a communication medium, and decoding of data after it has passed through a communication medium. Data encoding and decoding is used, for example, in data storage devices for encoding data that is written on a storage medium and decoding data that is read from a storage medium. Encoding is applied in order to convert the data into a form that is compatible with the characteristics of communication medium, and can include processes such as adding error correction codes, interleaving, turbo encoding, bandwidth limiting, amplification and many other known encoding processes. Decoding processes are generally inverse functions of the encoding processes. Encoding and decoding increases the reliability of the reproduced data.
The increasing demand for high data rate communications systems and high-density data storage devices has lead to intensive focus on implementation issues of iterative decoding concepts for error-correction codes (ECC's). One main enabling element of the near-optimum performance of iterative codes is the random interleaver (also called data shuffler or permuter) that is placed between two or more constituent encoders/decoders, or between an outer decoder and a channel detector. In designing interleavers (including deinterleavers), there are complex design tradeoffs between design parameters such as the degree of randomness of interleaving patterns, the area of silicon used to implement the interleaver, size of memories needed to support the interleaver, the power consumption of the interleaver and the speed (or conversely the latency) of the interleaver. As the performance in the area of higher speed and lower power consumption improve in other parts of a data storage device, there is a need to advance the design of the various interleavers (including de-interleavers) in the data communication channel such that the performance of the interleavers does not limit the overall performance of new design data storage devices.
Embodiments of the present invention provide solutions to these and other problems, and offer other advantages over the prior art.